ADGEOAdvances in GeosciencesADGEOAdv. Geosci.1680-7359Copernicus PublicationsGöttingen, Germany10.5194/adgeo-30-23-2011Estimation of spatio-temporal distribution of precipitable water using MODIS and AVHRR data: a case study for CyprusHadjimitsisD.1MitrakaZ.2GazaniI.2RetalisA.3ChrysoulakisN.2MichaelidesS.41Cyprus University of Technology, Department of Civil Engineering & Geomatics, Lemesos, Cyprus2Foundation for Research and Technology &ndash; Hellas, Institute of Applied and Computational Mathematics, Greece3National Observatory of Athens, Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development, Greece4Cyprus Meteorological Service, Nicosia, Cyprus09052011302329This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/This article is available from https://www.adv-geosci.net/30/23/2011/adgeo-30-23-2011.htmlThe full text article is available as a PDF file from https://www.adv-geosci.net/30/23/2011/adgeo-30-23-2011.pdf

In this paper, the atmospheric precipitable water (PW)
over the area of Cyprus was estimated by means of Advanced Very High
Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) thermal channels brightness temperature
difference (<i>&Delta;T</i>). The AVHRR derived <i>&Delta;T</i> was calculated in a
grid of 5 × 5 km cells; the corresponding PW value in each grid cell was
extracted from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Level 2
product (near-infrared algorithm). Once the PW – <i>&Delta;T</i>
relationship coefficients corresponding to the area of Cyprus were
calculated, the relationship was applied to AVHRR data for one month period.
Radiosonde derived PW values, as well as MODIS independent PW values were
used to validate the estimations and a good agreement was noted.